Setbacks

Setbacks

Life sure does have a way of making you feel a bit down, eh?

That's where I'm at right now. I've absolutely fallen back into the trap of feeling like I'm not quite in control again and wondering where the time is going. I've found myself staring into the void that is my phone, which is quite honestly, not surprising. It's way too easy to just open a browser or an app and effectively time travel. Before you know it, you've scrolled through countless posts, watched way too many shorts, and realized you feel worse after that 3 hour binge than you did before.

I've been trying to get back to how I was working on things late last year, but it's been challenging for a bit. It's a learning process though, and the learning never stops. I've installed a minimal launcher (Android only, sorry iPhone users) on my phone that just has links to some essential apps - one of the cool features about it is it lets you rename the link to the app. So for example, instead of Firefox, I just have it say Web. I put a black background, white text, and have a quick toggle to a greyscale mode that I can use to turn off when I need to see colors on the phone, but otherwise, it helps to make it more boring. It also has a screen time usage number right on the main view, so you can always see how long you've been using the phone. I'm still on the fence about this one - it's honestly a little depressing right now.

I've been getting back into reading as well! I'm about 30% of the way through the third Dungeon Crawler Carl book, and also nearly done with the Extraction series after reading a nice review of it here from Kev. I've been loving this series, it's got enough fast paced action and world building to keep me entertained. I'll probably be moving on to The Last Ship next. I've been rewatching the show since it came back to Netflix and while yes, it's absolutely a product of its time, with its overt jingoism and "just in time" approach to the main characters getting out of danger, it's also a weird comfort show for me.

I've been trying to find things that I actually like working on at work too. I was recently added to a global automation initiative, which has been a great opportunity so far, but it almost immediately got put on hold due to the leaders of the group going on a three week vacation. We'll get back at it soon, but it looks like really interesting work - that's where I want to be at again. Less "just do the thing" and more "make your brain work" stuff.